SUMMARY
- NBA superstar Nikola Jokić and former UFC champion Sean Strickland have some similarities.
- UFC heavyweight fighter Austen Lane reveals the uncanny resemblance between the two.
UFC heavyweight fighter Austen Lane compares former middleweight champion Sean Strickland to NBA superstar Nikola Jokić. It is not every day that a UFC fighter gets compared to an NBA player, but Lane has an interesting reason behind linking the two players.
Austen Lane joined UFC in September 2022 and made his main roster debut in June 2023. However, his debut ended in an anticlimactic fashion when an accidental eye poke ended the fight against Justin Tafa after just 29 seconds. However, in the rematch, Tafa KO’ed Lane at UFC 293. He will look to bounce back this weekend against Jhonata Diniz. Ahead of the bout, Lane had an interview with InsideFighting where he discussed various topics including Sean Strickland.
Sean Strickland and Nikola Jokić are molded in the same vein of training
Sean Strickland is one of the most unlikeliest UFC middleweight champions of all time. He defeated one of the middleweight GOATs, Israel Adesanya, to capture the 185lbs title at UFC 293. Ahead of the bout, Sean was a massive underdog and he was severely overlooked as a threat to Adesanya. But, he proved everyone wrong and utterly dominated “The Last Stylebender” for 25 minutes and won the contest.
While Strickland might not be the most skillful fighter, he certainly has a very high fight IQ. One of the biggest reasons behind it is the hard sparring that Strickland does in the gym. While some fighters prefer to do drills and light sparring during a fight camp. But the 33-year-old does not subscribe to the same school of thought. He goes all out during his sparring sessions instead of drills and according to Austen Lane, Nikola Jokić does the same.
During the interview with InsideFighting, Lane revealed, “I once asked an NBA guy about Nikola Jokić. The Joker from Denver, MVP back-to-back, probably gonna win another one. And I asked him, ‘You look at Jokić, he’s not athletic but like coming from a European system, how did make it to where he’s at and how’s he an MVP?’ And, what he said, kind of opened my eyes a little bit.”
UFC Heavyweight Austen Lane brings up Nikola Jokic when answering a question about how UFC champ Sean Strickland approaches training for a fight. pic.twitter.com/w88zx84Q5t
— n i k o l a e s t h e t i c (@nikolaesthetic) April 23, 2024
“Like in the European style basketball, like they don’t necessarily believe in weight lifting, they don’t believe in like, you know, drills. All they do is play basketball. They scrimmage, they play that non-stop, that’s the European style. So then those guys come over here and they’re already polished, they’re experienced because all they do is play basketball. That kind of reminds me of Sean a little bit, where all Sean does is really is just spar,” said the UFC star.
Nikola Jokić is a 29-year-old basketball player in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets. He hails from Serbia and made his NBA debut in 2015 for the Nuggets. Since then, he has been an unstoppable force and has won the NBA Championship once in 2023. As for personal accolades, He was the 2023 NBA Finals MVP, a two-time NBA MVP, and a six-time NBA All-Star. He is currently in the playoffs where the Nuggets are facing off against LeBron James‘ LA Lakers.
Austen Lane had some intense sparring sessions with Sean Strickland
Not every fighter has the experience of sparring with a UFC champion. Hence, Austen Lane was ecstatic sparring with the former middleweight king. While the two previously came across each other on separate occasions, they did not have the chance to train with each other.
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Talking about the sparring, Austen added, “It was definitely an experience cause Sean only spars in one way and I appreciate that because he’ll make you think really quick if you’re gonna be a fighter or not. You know what I’m saying? So we threw down a little bit, it was fun there was some sh*t talking but I got nothing but love man for the way he approaches his craft, for his style, always coming forward, man. I gained some valuable experience and like I said, any time I can throw down with somebody and turn it kind of loose a little bit, it’s a good time.”
While Austen Lane is returning to action this weekend, Sean Strickland will not fight until June 1. He will take on Paulo Costa in the UFC 302 co-main event as the lightweight champ Islam Makhachev takes on Dustin Poirier to defend his belt in the main event.